FAA faulted on oversight, hazardous flying conditions

ChristopherHinton

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The Federal Aviation Administration has been blamed for lapses in American Airlines' safety record and potentially other carriers, as a lack of proper oversight allegedly allowed the airline to put off hundreds of maintenance inspections.

The Department of Transportation's inspector general report, released Thursday, said the number of maintenance deferrals at American jumped 32% from 2004 through the first five months of 2008, to an average of 394 a day.

Despite the increase, the FAA only tracked deferrals that didn't identify the part of aircraft being deferred.

As a result, the FAA missed opportunities to identify potential hazards and act to correct them, the report said.

"Although various factors underlie each of American Airlines' maintenance-related events, a lack of adequate FAA oversight is a critical thread," Assistant Inspector General Lou Dixon wrote in the report. "This raises significant concerns about potential maintenance weaknesses going uncorrected -- not just at American but at other air carriers."

Recently, the National Transportation Safety Board found that American's system for monitoring and analyzing its inspection performance failed to detect repeated maintenance discrepancies.

If the discrepancies had been uncovered, an in-flight engine fire that occurred in September, 2007, could have been prevented, the inspector general report said.

"While FAA reviewed the carrier's policies and procedures...it did not determine whether the carrier actually followed them," the report said.

American and the Transport Workers Union, which represents more than 28,000 workers at the carrier's parent company AMR Corp.
AMR, -3.26%
said problems highlighted in the report have already been resolved.

"The report highlighted processes that required additional review and improvement, all of which American had already proactively addressed - and continues to address - through corrective action," said American spokesman Tim Wagner.

Bobby Gless, assistant director of the air transport division at TWU, said he feels American is an easy target for the FAA because most of its maintenance work is done in house and on U.S. territory, giving inspectors greater access.

"We're monitored more heavily than other airlines because other carriers ship their maintenance overseas," Gless said. "The other carriers and locations of their maintenance sites are not open to daily inspection."

The FAA disagreed, saying domestic and overseas maintenance centers have to meet the same standards. Foreign repair stations are inspected yearly, the agency said.

American is the last major carrier doing all of its maintenance work in house, according to a 2008 DOT report. Nine major airlines, including Delta Air Lines
DAL, -1.29%
Continental
CAL, +2.64%
and Southwest Airlines
LUV, -0.49%
outsourced 71% of their heavy airframe maintenance checks in 2007, up from 34% in 2003.

Foreign repair stations accounted for 27% of the outsourced checks, up from 21% in 2003. Foreign companies also sent work to the U.S.

Currently American has two systems of inspection that the FAA monitors under its air transport oversight system, or ATOS: the continuing analysis and surveillance system, or CASS, and overall reliability programs.

ATOS was implemented in 1998 to be a data-driven, risk-based approach to air carrier safety, the inspector general said, and essentially allows the airline to police itself.

Prior to 1998, inspectors focused on whether carriers were complying with regulations, an approach that proactively assessed risks within air carriers' maintenance and operating systems.

"Air carrier personnel enter reliability program data into CASS for monitoring the effectiveness of air carriers' inspection and maintenance programs," the report stated. "FAA inspectors are responsible for determining whether these maintenance and monitoring systems are working effectively through routine ATOS surveillance."

In February, 2008, the DOT received a complaint that alleged the overall reliability of American Airlines aircraft had diminished and raised "serious questions" as to the effectiveness of the airline's CASS system. The allegation noted maintenance-related delays, reduced spare part inventories, inspections by non-qualified mechanics, inadequate maintenance records, and retribution against personnel who reported maintenance problems.

The complaint also alleged the airline responded inadequately to a Boeing Co.
BA, +0.39%
service bulletin to fix a problem with some 757 windshield heating systems. If left uncorrected, the system could overheat, causing smoke to enter the cockpit, and crack or shatter the glass.

"The engineer responsible for drafting the engineering change order--which is required to issue work cards to mechanics--left the company, and the order was never released," the report said.

Separately, it was reported last week the parent company for American, AMR Corp.
AMR, -3.26%
was facing up to $10 million in fines due to safety violations in its MD-80 fleet.

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